Daniel Swain in Wired: Power Shutoffs Can’t Save California From Wildfire Hell

As the winds move over the Sierra Nevada in eastern California, they flow like water over rocks in a stream, compressing and warming. Slicing through valleys, the winds gather more speed, desiccating the air. “If you imagine the atmosphere over your head as a sponge, you can’t wring it out anymore,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA.